They Tried to Warn Us: Foreign Intelligence Warnings Before 9/11

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The Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9-11 is now finished, but the findings
that have been released fail to mention any warnings from foreign governments.
The US mainstream media also has paid little attention to warnings from foreign
governments.

Yet there were so many warnings—from both our friends and enemies alike—often
specifically suggesting the targets or method of attack. In at least one case,
the warnings actually mentioned hijackers by name. This type of communication
between intelligence agencies normally occurs in secret, so one can only wonder
what additional warnings or details were provided to us that have never been
made public.

No US publication has ever put all the various foreign government warnings
in one place; even Internet skeptics of Bush have paid scant attention to this
issue. Here, for the first time, is such a list of warnings.

First, General Warnings

In late 2000,
British investigators teamed up with their counterparts in the
Cayman Islands and began a yearlong probe of three Afghan men who had
entered the Cayman Islands illegally. [Miami
Herald, 9/20/01,
Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01] In June 2001, the Afghan men were overheard discussing
hijacking attacks in New York City, and were promptly taken into custody. This
information was forwarded to US intelligence [Fox
News, 5/17/02]. In late August 2001, shortly before the attacks, an anonymous
letter to a Cayman radio station alleged these same men were al-Qaeda agents “organizing a major terrorist act against the US via an airline or airlines.” [Miami
Herald, 9/20/01,
Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01,
MSNBC, 9/23/01]

In late July 2001,
Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil learned that
Osama bin Laden was planning a “huge attack” on targets inside America.
The attack was imminent, and would kill thousands, he learned from the leader
of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was closely allied with al-Qaeda
at the time. Muttawakil sent an emissary to pass this information on to the
US Consul General, and another US official, “possibly from the intelligence
services.” Sources confirmed that this message was received, but supposedly
not taken very seriously, because of “warning fatigue” arising from
too many terror warnings. [Independent,
9/7/02,
Reuters, 9/7/02]

Also in late July 2001, the US was given a “concrete warning” from
Argentina’s Jewish community. “An attack of major proportions” was planned against either the US, Argentina, or France. The information came
from an unidentified intelligence agency. [Forward,
5/31/02]

Hasni Mubarak, President of
Egypt, maintains that in the beginning of September 2001 Egyptian intelligence
warned American officials that al-Qaeda was in the advanced stages of executing
a significant operation against an American target, probably within the US.
[AP,
12/7/01,
New York Times, 6/4/02] He learned this information from an agent working
inside al-Qaeda. [ABC
News, 6/4/02]

Warnings the Attack Will Come from the Air

Many warnings specifically mentioned a threat coming from the air.

In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The
report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday
Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to
the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist
attack in Western countries. [London
Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling
the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was
included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday
Herald, 5/19/02]

In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that
Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use
them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously
and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such
terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon,
a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01,
Washington Post, 9/14/01]

In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover
agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US
and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians,
pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the
message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS,
10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained
on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item.
But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60
Minutes” show about a different topic.

In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that
a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used.
The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to
be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence
through several channels. [International
Herald Tribune, 5/21/02,
Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]

Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence
agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training
for attacks on US targets. [Fox
News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had
clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the
necessary attention.” [Agence
France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian
intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than
that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple
of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia,
9/12/02]

Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim
at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked
airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately
passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably
this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work
in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable
experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit,
9/16/01]
Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come
from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged
documents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell
were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los
Angeles Times, 5/29/02,
Guardian, 5/30/02,
Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan
was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing,
that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see
each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington
Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain
forged documents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very,
very secret” plan. [Los
Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US
a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox
News, 5/17/02]

Some have claimed that the existence of this spy ring shows that Israel was
behind the 9/11 attacks, an argument that is beyond the scope of this essay.
But if the mainstream media is to be believed, Israel gave the US several specific
warnings of the 9/11 attacks. In the second week of August 2001, two high-ranking
agents from the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, came to Washington and
warned the CIA and FBI that 50 to 200 al-Qaeda terrorists had slipped into the
US and were planning an imminent “major assault on the US” aimed at
a “large scale target” [Telegraph,
9/16/01,
Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01,
Ottawa Citizen, 9/17/01Fox
News, 5/17/02]. Near the end of August, France also gave a warning that was
an “echo” of Israel’s. [Fox
News, 5/17/02]

In October 2002, the story broke in Europe and Israel that on August 23, 2001,
the Mossad had given the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US. The Mossad
had said that the terrorists appeared to be planning to carry out an attack in
the near future. It is unknown if these are the same 19 names as the actual hijackers,
or if the number is a coincidence. However, the four names on the list that are
known are names of the 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan
Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. [Die
Zeit, 10/1/02,
Der Spiegel, 10/1/02,
BBC, 10/2/02,
Ha’aretz, 10/3/02] These are also probably the four most important of the
hijackers (and two of the pilots). From them, there were many connections to
the others. The CIA had already been monitoring three of them overseas the year
before, and two, Alhazmi and Almihdhar, were put on a watch list the same day
the Mossad gave this warning. [AFP,
9/22/01,
Berliner Zeitung, 9/24/01,
Observer, 9/30/01,
New York Times, 9/21/02]

Such detailed warnings of exact names fit in well with the reports that Israeli
spies were tracking the hijackers for months before 9/11. Yet, as Jane’s
Intelligence Digest put it, “It is rather strange that the US media
seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September
attacks…” [Jane’s
Intelligence Digest, 3/13/02] The spy ring story did get a little coverage
in the US, but more recent stories claiming that Israel knew the exact names
of at least some of the hijackers hasn’t been reported here at all. Perhaps the
story is too controversial for the US media to touch?

Conspicuous in Their Absence

So many countries warned the US: Afghanistan, Argentina, Britain, Cayman Islands,
Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, and Russia. Yet the two
countries in the best position to know about the 9/11 plot—Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan—apparently didn’t give any warning at all.

The ties between wealthy Saudi figures and al-Qaeda are many, and too complicated
to go into here. But it is interesting to notice that, while discussing the resignation
of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the head of the Saudi intelligence agency, the Wall
Street Journal has speculated that the Saudi Arabian government may have
had foreknowledge of 9/11: “The timing of Turki’s removal—August 31—and
his Taliban connection raise the question: Did the Saudi regime know that bin
Laden was planning his attack against the US? The current view among Saudi-watchers
is that this is doubtful, but that the House of Saud might have heard rumors
that something was planned, though they did not know what or when.”

An interesting and possibly significant detail is that Prince Sultan, the defense
minister, was due to visit Japan in early September, but canceled his trip for
no apparent reason two days before his planned departure. [Wall
Street Journal, 10/22/01] In fact, that same Prince Sultan appears to have
rejected a chance to warn the US. In August 2001, a military associate of a Middle
Eastern prince passed information to former CIA agent Robert Baer about a “spectacular
terrorist operation” to take place shortly. He also gave Baer a computer
record of around 600 secret al-Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. But
when Baer tried to give this information to Prince Sultan, he was rebuffed. Baer
gave the information to the CIA as well, making this apparently yet another ignored
warning. [Financial
Times, 1/12/02, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the
CIA’s War on Terrorism,Robert Baer, 2/02,
pp. 270-271, Breakdown: How America’s Intelligence Failures Led to September
11, Bill Gertz,
pp. 55-58]

The story of Pakistan’s direct involvement in 9/11 is another topic beyond
the scope of this essay. One example will suffice. The Wall Street Journal
reported in October 2001 that Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, head of the Pakistani intelligence
agency Inter-Services Intelligence, ordered $100,000 be given to Mohamed Atta
in the US. The Journal further noted that the FBI had confirmed this information.
[Wall
Street Journal, 10/10/01] So perhaps it’s not surprising that Pakistan wouldn’t
warn the US what its intelligence chief was up to. But again, this information
did reach the US through other means. On July 14, 1999, Randy Glass, a thief
turned government informant, was wiretapping a meeting in New York City in which
he was trying to sell military equipment to some Pakistanis as part of a sting
operation. During the meeting, a Pakistani intelligence agent pointed to the
World Trade Center and said to Glass, “Those towers are coming down.” Glass recorded this on tape, and passed this and other disturbing evidence to
his local congressperson, senator, and others. Senator Bob Graham has admitted
his office received such a warning from Glass before 9/11. [Palm
Beach Post, 10/17/02]

What Defenses?

From this list, one can see there were many warnings specifying the type of
attack, a general timeframe, and the location as either New York City or the
World Trade Center. And this list only includes warnings from foreign governments,
and excludes warnings from the US itself: its own communications intercepts,
individuals with foreknowledge, suggestions from similar attacks, and the knowledge
of American intelligence agents on the track of al-Qaeda. We know that US intelligence
was suffering “warning fatigue” from so many notifications of an upcoming
al-Qaeda attack. One would think that, based on these warnings, the US would
have dramatically increased its security. One would be wrong.

But in fact, while the US recently had over 100 fighters defending the US,
the number was reduced in 1997 to save money. By 9/11 there were supposedly only
14 fighters protecting the entire US, and most of those were focused on drug
interdiction. Of the 14, only four were in the greater vicinity of New York or
Washington. Supposedly, on 9/11 there was not a single plane on alert within
100 miles of either city. With so many warnings suggesting an imminent attack
would come from the air and/or target important, symbolic buildings, why weren’t
New York, Washington and other probable target areas defended with fighters or
antiaircraft batteries? There was an antiaircraft battery permanently stationed
on top of the White House, but inexplicably it wasn’t used to shoot down Flight
77, which flew low over the White House before making a sharp turn and hitting
the Pentagon. [Dallas
Morning News, 9/16/01,
Newsday, 9/23/01] The US government has not claimed it improved ground security
before 9/11 at places like the Pentagon and World Trade Center either.

In case there was a failure of imagination, Italy had just set an example
two months before 9/11 on how to respond to a terrorist threat: After receiving
a warning that a summit of world leaders in the city of Genoa would be targeted
by al-Qaeda, they conspicuously defended the city with increased police, antiaircraft
batteries, and constantly flying fighter jets. Apparently the press coverage
of the defenses caused al-Qaeda to cancel the attack. President Bush could hardly
have failed to notice, since he took the unusual step of sleeping on board a
US aircraft carrier during the summit. [BBC,
7/18/01,
CNN, 7/18/01,
Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01]

Conclusion

One single warning should have been enough to take precautions, but with so
many warnings coming in, how can inaction be explained as mere incompetence?
Yes, it is often difficult to know which terrorist threats are real, and what
information to trust. But if the US couldn’t take seriously warnings from close
allies like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and so on, then what were they waiting
for? What would they have taken seriously? And where is the outrage, the investigation?
As can be seen with the recent Congressional inquiry, the typical US government
response has been to ignore these foreign government warnings altogether, or
to say they were lies. On October 17, 2002, CIA Director Tenet claimed that the
only warnings “where there was a geographic context, either explicit or
implicit, appeared to point abroad, especially to the Middle East.” [Congressional
Intelligence Committee, 10/17/02] On May 16, 2002, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice stated to the press: “I don’t think anybody could have
predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World
Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would
try to use an airplane as a missile.” She added that “even in retrospect” there was “nothing” to suggest that. [White
House, 5/16/02] On June 7, 2002, President Bush stated, “Based on everything
I’ve seen, I do not believe anyone could have prevented the horror of September
the 11th.” [Sydney
Morning Herald, 6/8/02]

Either the Bush Administration is lying, or most of America’s close allies
are. So why hasn’t Congress investigated these foreign intelligence claims? Why
hasn’t a single mainstream media article connected all these dots, or given these
warnings the coverage they deserve? Either some people within the US government
knew the 9/11 attack would happen and did nothing, or some people within the
US government failed to heed advice from a dozen foreign governments and properly
defend the US from attack. Perhaps both. These people should be removed from
office on the grounds of gross incompetence, or face the legal consequences of
aiding and abetting terrorism. It seems clear that there are people who fear
an investigation, and that that is why these dots are left unconnected.

Ultimately, we are all in grave danger if these same officials continue to
be in charge of protecting us from terrorist attacks.

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